Context: After months of conducting an inquiry into press phone hacking
and other harrying of ‘civilians’, Brian Leveson has recommended, according to a correspondent, something along the lines of the BBC Board of Governors to control the press.

That is certainly the impression I got from Leveson’s maundering,
intellectually weak summary that amounts to turning the rest of the fossil media into another
leftist, washed out BBC.

The effect is likely to be the continued sidelining
and slow death of ‘Fleet Street.’.

The only extra legal rights/laws I can see being useful are:

If on telling a ‘reporter’ to ‘go away’ just once,
and that reporter continuing to harass (that is, refuses to obey at once),
then the reptile has committed a criminal offence.

Pack chasing, door stepping etc would become a criminal offence, similar
to stalking.

Any approach to a legally underage person is punishable by 2 years
imprisonment minimum.

Making up and printing lies becomes a criminal offence.

The rest of the ridiculous behaviour by reptiles is already
illegal. The problem is getting the police to do their
supposed duty/job.

longer term readers will recall the warnings given about
the constant undermining of UK freedoms under ‘New’ Labour’s Tony Bliar.

“Don’t be misled by this inverted wording. What it states is that the
EU may indeed limit rights in the "general interest". In other words,
our Magna Carta has been superceeded.

“It is the European Court (ECJ)
that decides what is "proportional" or "necessary", and it cannot be trusted. The ECJ behaves like the Star
Chamber of Charles I, as I learned following three cases where it
rubber-stamped the abuse of state power against whistleblowers Bernard
Connolly and Marta Andreasen, and German journalist Hans-Martin Tillack.

“Mr Tillack was arrested by Belgian police and held incommunicado for
ten hours. Incommunicado on the basis of a fabricated allegation by
two EU officials. Police went through his notes and computers,
identifying his network of informants inside the EU apparatus.

“Mr Tillack took the case to the ECJ. It ruled in favour of the system.
It always does.” [Quoted from telegraph.co.uk]

“We did so on the grounds that the UK's Common Law foundation requires
special treatment, but nobody really thought at the time that we would
use the opt-out. It was a sop to placate people like us at The Daily
Telegraph until the Lisbon storm had passed.

“Well, it turns out that Theresa May is opting out. Some say she will
have to opt back in immediately to almost all of it. We will see about that. The withdrawal from the insidious arrest warrant gives me particular
pleasure. I covered the legislation as it rolled through the Brussels
and Strasbourg machine years ago.

“We were told categorically that it was to cover terrorist offences
only. Then it became "terrorist-related". Then serious crimes. Then
the final draft appeared and it included such issues as xenophobia, a
term that other parts of the EU machinery had extended to include
euroscepticism.

“Finally, we discover that it is being used to arrest people who fail
to pay parking tickets. Any political magistrate can have you
extradited for anything without having to put up evidence. Free speech
is not safe, as the criminal witchhunt against the rating agencies in
Italy shows all too clearly.” [Quoted from blogs.telegraph.co.uk]

“The EAW [European Arrest Warrant] has removed many of the traditional safeguards in the extradition process. If a court in one country demands a person’s arrest and extradition, courts and police in other countries must act on it. In 2009, this fast track extradition system was used to extradite over 4,000 people across the EU (700 people from the UK alone).” [Quoted from http://www.fairtrials.net]

“Anger at Britain’s “gold-plating” of the controversial European Arrest Warrant is growing after it emerged that other EU countries have secured significant safeguards for their citizens that are not available to British nationals. ”
—
“Many are accused of trivial crimes overseas such as possessing cannabis or leaving petrol stations without paying. No evidence need be presented in British courts of the alleged offence and judges have few powers to resist the person’s extradition.” [Quoted from http://www.telegraph.co.uk]

On Wednesday night, after a threat was sent to this embassy and the police descended on the building, you came out in the middle of the night to watch over it, and you brought the world's eyes with you.

Inside the embassy after dark I could hear teams of police swarming up into the building through the internal fire escape. But I knew that there would be witnesses.

And that is because of you.

If the UK did not throw away the Vienna conventions the other that is because the world was watching.

And the world was watching because you were watching.

The next time somebody tells you that it is pointless to defend those rights we hold dear, remind them of your vigil in the dark before the Embassy Of Ecuador, and how in the morning the sun came up on a different world and a courageous and a courageous Latin American nation took a stand for justice.

And so to those brave people I thank President Correa for the courage he has shown in considering and granting me political asylum.

And so I thank the government and the Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino who have upheld the Ecuadorian constitution and its notion of universal rights in their consideration of my case.

And to the Ecuadorian people for supporting and defending this constitution. And I have a debt of gratitude to the staff of this embassy whose families live in London and who have shown me hospitality and kindness despite the threats that they received.

This Friday there will be an emergency meeting of the foreign ministers of Latin America in Washington DC to address this situation. And so I am grateful to the people and governments of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Venezuela and to all of the other Latin American countries who have come to defend the right to asylum.

To the people of the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Australia who have supported me in strength even when their governments have not and to those wiser heads in government who are still fighting for justice your day will come.

To the staff, supporters and sources of Wikileaks whose courage and commitment and loyalty has seen no equal.

To my family and to my children who have been denied their father forgive me we will be reunited soon.

As Wikileaks stands under threat so does the freedom of expression and the health of our societies. We must use this moment to articulate te choice that is before the government of the United States of America.

Will it return to and reaffirm the values it was founded on? Or will it lurch off the precipice dragging us all into a dangerous and oppressive world in which journalists fall silent under the fear of prosecution and citizens must whisper in the dark?

I say that it must turn back.

I ask President Obama to do the right thing.

The United States must renounce its witch-hunt against Wikileaks. The United States must dissolve its FBI investigation. The United States must vow that it will not seek to prosecute our staff or our supporters.

The United States must pledge before the world that it will not pursue journalists for shining a light on the secret crimes of the powerful.

There must be no more foolish talk about prosecuting any media organisation be it Wikileaks or the New York Times.

The US administration's war on whistleblowers must end.

Thomas Drake and William Binney and John Kiriakou and the other heroic US whistleblowers must - they must - be pardoned and compensated for the hardships they have endured as servants of the public record.

And the Army Private who remains in a military prison in Fort Levenworth Kansas who was found by the UN to have endured most torturous detention in Quantico Virginia and who has yet after two years in the prison to see a trial must be released.

And if Bradley Manning really did as he is accused he is a hero an example to us all and one of the world's foremost political prisoners.

Bradley Manning must be released.

On Wednesday Bradley Manning spent his 815th day of detention without trial. The legal maximum is 120 days.

On Thursday my friend Nabeel Rajah was sentenced to three years for a tweet. On Friday a Russian band were sentenced to two years in jail for a political performance.

There is unity in the oppression. There must be absolute unity and determination in the response.